The Floral Oracle. 
33 1 
This oracle cannot fail to excite much harmless mirth; but 
some kinds of floral divinations, as these pages testify, have 
oft produced deeper thoughts and more serious consequences. 
A favourite plan of attempting to peep into futurity by 
means of floral agency is practised by abstracting the petals 
of flowers, and with each innocent floral theft using such alter¬ 
nate words as those in the following verses. It is a custom of 
considerable antiquity, and is still affectionately preserved in 
many different lands. A flower of the aster kind is generally 
made use of for the purpose, although daisies and other blooms 
occasionally serve for the same operations, and, there can be 
little doubt, are equally efficacious. Gdthe, in the garden scene 
of “ Faust,” introduces the rural custom in order to illustrate 
the childish simplicity of Margaret. In a poem entitled “ I he 
Decision of the Flower,” L. E. L. thus alludes to the incident: 
“ The maiden found her mystic flower. He loves not—he loves me—he loves 
‘Now, gentle flower, I pray thee tell me not— 
If my lover loves me, and loves me well; He loves me—yes, thou last leaf, yes— 
So may the fall of the morning dew I’ll pluck thee not for that last sweet 
Keep the sun from fading thy tender guess! 
blue. Helovesme.’ ‘Yes!’adear voice sighed, 
Now I number the leaves for my lot: And herloverstands by Margaret’s side.” 
One of those noble sons which fair Columbia hath sent forth 
to hymn the praises of the motherland, James Lowell—as true 
a poet in thought and word as ever breathed—has not soared 
so high but that he could stoop to pluck a few terrestrial blos¬ 
soms, and in these sweet fancies, sent with a pressed flower, 
finds pleasant pcnsees in this pretty practice of divination : 
“ This little flower from afar, “ And thou must count its petals well, 
Hath come from other lands to thine; Because it is a gift from me; 
For once its white and drooping star And the last one of all shall tell 
Could see its shadow in the Rhine. Something I’ve often told to thee. 
“ Perchance some fair-haired German maid “But here at home, where we were 
Hath plucked one from the self-same born, 
stalk, Thou wilt find flowers just as true, 
And numbered over, half afraid, Down-bending every Summer morn 
Its petals in her evening walk. With freshness of New England dew. 
“ ‘He loves me, loves me not!’ she cries; “For Nature, ever kind to love, 
‘He loves me more than earth or heaven!’ Hath granted them the same siveet tongue % 
And then glad tears have filled her eyes Whether with German skies above, 
To find the number was uneven. Or here our granite rocks among.” 
